Cliff L. Wood, president of Rockland Community College, spoke about the expansion of RCC's Haverstraw Center planned to open in October.

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Community colleges are concerned they could lose millions of dollars in State University of New York aid for English-as-a-second-language classes because of a 2012 law intended to reduce the need — and funding — for remedial education at the 30 institutions statewide.

Westchester and Rockland community colleges and many state lawmakers from the region are asking SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher to exempt non-credit ESL courses from draft guidelines that would limit state aid for remedial education to two sequential courses in any specific discipline, and that would permit aid only for courses that led to credit-bearing studies.

The 2012 law was never intended to eliminate funding for ESL, Lower Hudson Valley Assembly and Senate members wrote in a letter to Zimpher Friday regarding the potential impact on Westchester Community College. The legislation requires community colleges to implement plans that will improve student outcomes and graduation rates and reduce expenditures on remedial courses.

“We are very concerned that adoption of these proposed guidelines and the loss of approximately six million dollars ... is a drastic, disproportionate reduction in aid which will have the unintended consequence of eliminating access to English as a Second Language courses at Westchester Community College for most who now access these resources,” legislators wrote.

One of Zimpher’s major initiatives is eliminating the need for remedial education, and SUNY is working with educators and communities to better prepare students for college. More than 40 percent of students seeking an associate’s degree enroll in remedial courses, and community colleges spend about $70 million a year in this area.

WCC has the largest ESL program in SUNY and teaches about 4,000 students in roughly 300 class sections a year, school spokesman Patrick Hennessey said. It gets about $6 million of the $18 million SUNY doles out for noncredit remedial courses, he said.

Rockland Community College President Cliff L. Wood said in a statement to The Journal News that he understands the need to graduate students more quickly and reduce remedial education resources.

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“What does not change, however, is our need to provide access and opportunity for students who have not had the educational opportunities they deserve to be successful in education and in careers,” he said.

Wood said he is particularly concerned about how the guidelines could affect the college’s ESL programs.

The guidelines have not been finalized and SUNY administration is seeking feedback from colleges on the proposed changes, spokesman David Doyle said. “We need to make sure that these programs across the system are in alignment with the state’s educational goals and funding, SUNY’s goals, our resources and in the best interest of the students,” he said.

A draft memo from Zimpher to community college presidents, dated “August XX, 2013,” said that to be eligible for state aid effective Sept. 1, 2014, courses would have to be submitted to SUNY administration by Jan. 1, 2014. They would learn by May 1, 2014 whether they were approved.

Non-credit remedial classes “are not intended to act in an Adult Basic Education capacity,” according to the proposed guidelines. “Students in these courses should have a reasonable expectation of being able to enter college-level study upon completion of one, or at most, two sequential courses in any specific discipline.”

But SUNY’s interpretation of the law “leads one to believe that students may pursue a higher education credential only in the form of a credit-bearing educational activity,” Wood wrote. “This is not necessarily the objective of all students.”

Hennessey agreed. “Some people come in, they just want to learn English. They want to learn it so they’re better at work,” he said.

If the guidelines are approved as is, WCC would have to dramatically shrink its 25-year-old ESL program, potentially by 70 to 80 percent, Hennessey said. If it charged higher tuition, it wouldn’t be able to keep class sizes at 15 to 20 people, and students could be priced out of the courses, he said.

ESL research shows that it takes more than two courses to reach the level of proficiency required to enter a credit or non-credit program, WCC said in its feedback.

A letter from the Westchester Community College Foundation to the chancellor said the guidelines would have a “discriminatory effect” on Hispanics, who comprise nearly 25 percent of county residents.

Assemblyman Tom Abinanti, D-Mount Pleasant, said he hopes SUNY will respond to the concerns and exempt ESL. “Including English as a second language is a bad policy that will hurt a lot of people and is probably not authorized by the statute or the regulation,” he said.